Pep Guardiola has done his fair share of dinners over a decade at Manchester City and one early in the manager’s tenure helped shape an attitude that has brought untold domestic success.
Gregarious around the table when the red flows, Guardiola. Inquisitive too. On one occasion he was meeting some supporters and wanted to know: which trophy is the most important? What should I be winning for you?
Peppered with the same answers in order of prominence. One, the title. Two, the FA Cup. Three, the League Cup. If there is any capacity left, then the Champions League.
That said much about City fans and their relationship with European football and UEFA, something that Guardiola would learn to understand over the course of his first contract.
Nevertheless, the replies will have made him think. Since then, he has made the Carabao Cup fashionable again, winning a fifth against Arsenal before the international break, and has lost only one of his FA Cup meetings away from Wembley.
One. Just one. Away at Wigan Athletic in 2018. The famous, ‘sit down, nobody talk’ dressing down at half-time as acrimony reigned down a combustible tunnel following Fabian Delph’s sending off.
Pep Guardiola was told by Man City fans that the FA Cup ranks above the Champions League
They have an exceptional record of reaching Webley, only losing failing to get there once in the competition during Guardiola’s reign
It is the only season that Guardiola has failed to reach at least the semi-final, such supremacy that City have had first refusal on the local Hilton hotel. The record is phenomenal, even if he might feel that City should have lifted more than two across his nine campaigns. An eighth consecutive semi-final beckons if they beat Liverpool on Saturday, extending their own record.
‘I don’t need to finish and go to the Maldives underneath the coconuts to realise how incredible it is,’ said Guardiola, wearing the tan of a man who had spent a fortnight on a faraway beach reflecting on just that. ‘I’m sorry, it’s incredible – in real time. Some of them I know why we didn’t win, I know perfectly why sometimes we didn’t have more chance to win. I know that.’
There he likely means refereeing and a harshly disallowed goal in their first trip kicked that off, the semi-final defeat by Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal in 2017.
The rage in his face as Crystal Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson escaped a red card for handball in last May’s final tells the tale of a man desperate to win a pot that many had discarded – one that Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United had withdrawn from entirely earlier in the century.
‘I love it,’ Guardiola said. ‘The FA Cup I’ve always thought, “wow”. The League Cup, Brian Kidd said to me, “this competition nobody cares, Sir Alex (never cared)”.
‘When you win four in a row, five in 10 years, it is because you care. We tried since I arrived to make a culture at this club – in every game we played, to be there to win.’
Victory against Liverpool would do two more things: book City’s 23rd trip to the national stadium in a cup competition under Guardiola and break a 145-year record. Clapham Rovers won 17 on the bounce at home from 1873, although only actually ended up as champions once. They dissolved in 1914, hosting home games on the commons of Claphan, Wandsworth and Tooting Bec in south London.
City are level with them, a handful of their home wins against Premier League opponents – the harder draws coming away from the Etihad Stadium, pitted with top-flight teams in almost half of their ties. The brutish way Guardiola’s side have dispatched lower league visitors (Rotherham for seven, Exeter 10, Salford eight) speaks to the character of somebody who has always treated this competition with the utmost seriousness.
If they beat Liverpool on Saturday, they will reach an eighth consecutive FA Cup semi-final
Erling Haaland, Rodri, Antoine Semenyo and Rayan Cherki all started against Exeter in January. Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez and Ilkay Gundogan were on the sheet when Rotherham arrived in 2019. Guardiola does not mess about and talks up the days when they travel to more traditional stadiums – like Newport County’s Rodney Parade or Whaddon Road in Cheltenham – when the fans are on top of them and make things a little unpleasant.
There was also a state of perplexity around the coaching staff when it was claimed that the 6-0 shellacking of Watford in the 2019 final, Guardiola’s first FA Cup, devalued the competition.
‘Always we have been there,’ he said. ‘You take the coach, go away against League One or Two. I know how important it is for them. The pitch! The stadiums in January, February… long balls, second balls. The Champions League is fascinating but when you play this, you feel that, “I am in England”.
‘Champions League is so nice, don’t misunderstand me, but when you come here in England and play these competitions you feel that I am in this country, where that competition belongs.
‘Eight semi-finals in the FA Cup? Come on, guys. Not even in Spain and Germany they do that. Or Italy. They don’t do it.’
